Month: July 2013

Arrived home today to find the final part of my Escape Kickstarter pack had arrived at last. This comprised a cloth bag to keep the game in (which is never going to get used) together with the second expansion for the game – Escape: Quest. This adds more chambers, a ghost meeple used in one of the chambers and some character tiles. I expect the expansion will be on general release in the next week or two.

Just back from a week in Gran Canaria with Jan, Cat and Becky. As usual, I managed to pack a few (14) games and we managed to play ten of them during the week. The games I packed but didn’t play were Jaipur, Mystery Rummy: Murders in the Rue Morgue, Tien Zi Que and Keltis; Das Kartenspiel. However, we did manage:

I’m not sure how far this is down Ystari’s development chain but I have to admit that when I saw this image I was intrigued as to what the Doctor might have in store for us this time. And Sebastian Bleasdale has done some good work recently, especially with Richard Breese on Keyflower.

Well colour me surprised! And pleased that the SdJ jury chose the winner of this year’s award to be Hanabi, deigned by Antoine Bauza and released by Abacus Spiele. Turning to the Kennerspiel des Jahres, this went to Legends of Andor, designed by Michael Menzel and published by Kosmos. Two co-operative games take the awards which is an interesting development. Admittedly, co-op games are becoming a lot more common than was the case ten years ago and they fit quite well with the aim of the award in promoting families getting together to play games. However, they are not to everyone’s tastes although I am a fan of co-ops when they are done well. Hanabi is definitely one that is done well. I’ve not tried Legends of Andor so maybe it’s time I tried it. Congratulations to the winners.

The winners of this year’s Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres are announced tomorrow, 8th July. If you recall, the nominees for the main award were Augustus, Hanabi and Qwixx and those for the KedJ were Brugge, Palaces of Carrara and Legends of Andor. So, what do I think will win?

Augustus and Legends of Andor are my picks. Although we didn’t really rate Augustus as a six-player game when we played it,Â and I would love it if either Hanabi or Qwixx won, Augustus is the kind of big box game with expansion potential that the jury loves. As for the more complex game award, Andor looks good and a co-operative game would make a novel winner. Palaces is a game I would like to see win but nobody is giving this a chance whereas I’ve not yet played Brugge although I’m sure it’s typical Stefan Feld so could be in with a chance.

Wayback When? is a review of the games I was playing five, ten, fifteen and twenty years ago with me highlighting the most memorable titles of each particular month in the vain hope that I might dig out some of them to play again. This month weâ€™re looking at July 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008.

July 2008 was nearly as barren a month as June for game playing but, although I only played four games, two of those were the first plays for Agricola and Uptown. In 2003, I went one better in terms of total games played but the highlights were not as spectacular as in 2008. Blokus is a pretty good abstract, which we ought to try again soon, but Mammoth Hunters was a very forgettable game from the normally reliable publisher, Alea.

Â

Fifteen years ago, the only new game I played in July was the fairly entertaining, Power, which I still have somewhere in a storage box – should I dig it out – while in 1993, I got to play the classic 6 Tage Rennen, a game I’ve never acquired but enjoy every time I play it.

In June, I managed to play 22 games of 17 different titles, 7 of which were new to me. The new games were Vineta, Wurfel Wurst, Jackal & High, Famous500, Augustus, Clubs, The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet, Terra Mystica and La Boca.

I added five new titles to the collection which were La Boca, Wurfel Wurst, Jackal & High, Clubs and The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet. I also sold 22 games during the month. My unplayed games listÂ came downÂ to 22 and game of the month was a tough choice between three (Terra Mystica, The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet and clubs). Although Terra Mystica is a fine game and others would certainly pick this, my choice is actually Clubs, a lovely climbing cardgame that works extremely well and will get played much more than TM.